After watching and responding to Max Derrat's video about Silent Hill's timeline not making sense, I went back and watched one of Max's older videos, and I have some more I want to say. Don't worry, this time, I'm actually agreeing with Max, and want to add my 2 cents to what he has to say about the topic of the upcoming remake of Silent Hill 1. In Max's video, titled "Let's Talk About Silent Hill 1 Remake...", he mentions that he thinks Harry's character needs to be more fleshed out and developed for a modern re-telling, so that he doesn't come off as stale and robotic as he does in the original game.

I personally don't think that expanding the character is strictly necessary. I think more emotive character models and vocal delivery would go a long way by itself, without having to necessarily change anything about Harry's character or backstory. But even though I don't think it's strictly necessary to expand Harry's character, I do still think it has the potential to be a great idea, if Bloober does it well and stays true to Harry's original character. And if you already watched my first critique on the Return To Silent Hill movie, then you know how I feel about Harry, and specifically about his role as a heroic single father figure.

I do not think that Bloober will make the same mistake the Christophe Gans made, and recast Harry as a mother in order to conform to outdated gender stereotypes. Bloober sure as hell better maintain Harry as that heroic and somewhat idealized single father that he is in the original game -- a single father who unconditionally loves his adopted daughter, and will go through literal Hell and back to protect her. Part of what made me love the first Silent Hill game was that I loved Harry as a character. I saw him as an aspirational figure -- the kind of father that I would like to be if I ever had children, or if I ever decided to adopt a child. I absolutely want that to be preserved in any remake or adaptation of the first Silent Hill.

Max Derrat is one of my favorite YouTube content creators. He specializes in talking about occult and psychological (Jungian or Freudian) themes in videos games, with a special emphasis on Silent Hill, Metal Gear Solid, and FromSoftware. He recently posted a video titled "The Silent Hill Timeline Makes No Sense", in which he attempts to place the original 4 Silent Hill games on a timeline, in response to the trailer for Silent Hill: Townfall stating that game takes place in 1996.

Well, Max, I (and others) have tried this exercise in the past. I specifically wrote a lengthy blog about a decade ago in which I tried to create a timeline for Silent Hill. It was a bit of a cluster fuck then, and it's still a cluster fuck now, as Max found out. The problem gets even worse when you try to account for the games that have released since Silent Hill 4.

Max largely comes to similar conclusions as I did, with Silent Hill and Silent Hill 3 being shifted by a few years. But we did have one major point of disagreement, which is the placement of Silent Hill 4 on the timeline. Since Max is directly addressing an issue I attempted to solve a decade ago, I thought I would make my own response video to express both my agreement with the majority of Max's research and conclusions, but also my [respectful] disagreement with his placement of Silent Hill 4. So I spent the last week or so writing and editing a video response to Max, which you can watch below.

I'm not going to rewrite that entire video's script here, especially since most of what I discuss is based directly on my original blog from a decade ago. So I recommend you read that blog for all my detailed arguments, evidence, and reasoning. I will however, take a moment to summarize some of the key points of my response for my faithful readers.

While the federal government continues to dive head-first into inept authoritarianism (which I will continue to say, while the government still allows me to say it), at least state governments are still occasionally doing what they are supposed to do. Earlier this week, the state of California passed a new law requiring streaming services such as Netflix, YouTube, and so forth to limit the volume of ads to be no louder than the volume of the actual content.

This may seem like a minor thing that shouldn't need legislation. Which is true. It really should not require legislation, as streaming services and advertisers should have known to self-regulate this to begin with -- especially considering that there is already a similar law for broadcast TV and radio! But then again, when does corporate self-regulation ever work? But even though this bit of self-regulation would seem like common sense, this has been a massive pet peeve of mine for years, and it still had to come down to a government regulating it.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who gets frustrated by having to turn the TV volume up almost as high as it will go, just to be able to hear and understand dialogue in a movie or TV show, only to have an ad come on and deafen me, almost blow out my speakers, shake the house, and wake up any family who are sleeping. I've been ranting and complaining about this privately, at home, for years (and have probably posted complaints about it online a few times). Now, it appears, that streaming services might finally have to address the problem.

The new California law doesn't go into effect until July of 2026, and I don't live in California, so I might still be waiting a long time to see this change in my own personal TV and movie streaming experience. In fact, it might never change at all. But I am hopeful that it will. It is quite common for corporations to implement state regulations in their products and services for all states or jurisdictions. This is because it's often simpler and cheaper to just apply the change everywhere, rather than have to have different versions for different jurisdictions. So if YouTube, Netflix, and so forth have to develop an algorithm to match the volume of ads to the volume of content, there's a good chance that new code will be applied to all their content everywhere; rather than having to specifically check and apply it only if the viewer is in California.

So there's a strong chance that, even though I don't live in California (and many of my readers probably don't either), we will all benefit from this new California law.

Thank goodness for California!

(I had meant to write and publish this post last Monday, but I got distracted and didn't.)

Last week marked a subtle, but significant shift in my video game YouTube consumption. For the first time in over a decade, Stephanie (formerly James) Sterling did not post a new JimQuisition episode last Monday. (As of the time of this writing, I haven't seen an upload for this Monday either). She had warned us that she would be taking a long overdue break. Part of me thought that she wouldn't be able to go through with it, and that she just wouldn't be able to help herself and would publish a video anyway. She didn't.

Stephanie Sterling is part of an "old guard" of video game essayists on YouTube who shaped many of my perceptions of video game criticism, and criticism of the games industry at large. In addition to the JimQuisition, I was a big fan of creators like SuperBunnyHop, Errant Signal, Max Derrat, Noah Caldwell-Gervais, Joseph Anderson, and others. These creators (and others) largely influenced my own content creation philosophies. But many of these creators have slowed down or stopped uploading altogether.

SuperBunnyHop went from uploading an essay about every 2 months, to uploading 1 game essay over a span of about 2 years. Though he has since started uploading more regularly this year, with an excellent history of war-gaming (and how it evolved from table-top to video game).

Errant Signal was similarly publishing a new video every month or 2, but has slowed down to just a handful of uploads over the past 2 years. Almost all of those have been his on-going "Children of Doom" series. Will this series be his swan song? Or will he go back to more broad essays after this massive project is over?

Joseph Anderson is still doing occasional large critiques, but he seems to have moved more towards live streaming instead of pre-recorded, long-form essays. I haven't watched any of the live streams, but I have seen some clips from some of them.

Others, like Max Derrat and Noah Caldwell-Gervais seem to still be going strong, and both seem to be broadening the topics of their content. Max Derrat has begun covering other game series beyond Silent Hill and Metal Gear, while still keeping focused on how philosophy and the occult are adapted into whatever games he discusses. Noah has been creating a lot more "road trip" content, in which he talks about U.S. history from the perspective of driving a particular interstate route. I've actually liked those road trip videos a lot, since they make me nostalgic for the road trips that I took with my family as a child.

In any case, content from these foundational game essayists seems to have become fewer and further between over the past couple years, culminating with Sterling's decision to take her long-overdue break. I've been almost religiously following the JimQuisition for years now, watching almost every Monday. Last Monday, the internet seemed like an emptier, more hollow place without thanking God for her.

Last week marked the first Monday in a decade that Stephanie Sterling did not upload a JimQuisition episode.

Today, I posted a pair of new videos for my Patrons. These videos discuss what I consider to be the best and worst parts of Bloober's Silent Hill 2 Remake. Both videos can be viewed by Patrons by visiting the following link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/best-and-worst-2-131192586.

The first video is about the best thing about the remake. It will be a Patreon exclusive for about a week. At that point, I will release it to the public, and the second video will remain a Patreon exclusive for a couple weeks before it goes available to the public. Once both videos are publicly available, I will update this post to embed both videos for all my readers to be able to watch. In fact, I might even embed them here a little bit early, for all my loyal readers. It will really depend on how busy I am over the next few weeks (I will be very busy).

Of course, if you already read my full written review on this blog, then you probably have a good idea of what each video's topic will be.

As always, thanks to all of my Patrons, past, present, and future. Your support has meant a great deal to me, and has helped me offset some of the costs of maintaining this blog and of creating my YouTube content. I wish you all the best.